


Where foxes say goodnight

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: The Order (TV 2019)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Best Friends, Emotional Baggage, Gen, Heart-to-Heart, Missing Scene, Post-Episode: s01e08 Undeclared Part 2, Self-Blame, Survivor Guilt, Team as Family, Unethical Experimentation, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Wolf Pack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:28:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25012417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: “So,” Hamish said elegantly. “This night has been a shit-show.”Lilith scoffed, harsh and unkind. “You can fucking say that again.”“How about you, Randall?” Hamish titled his head on the back of the couch to face Randall, so close yet so far, curled up into a tight ball on the other side of the couch.“Fine,” Randall grunted, and Hamish raised his eyebrows at him. Randall still refused to so much as glance at him, “‘m fine.”Lilith exchanged a glance with Hamish. “Are you… sure? Because you don’t look fine, let alone sound fine.”
Relationships: Randall Carpio & Hamish Duke
Comments: 6
Kudos: 57





	Where foxes say goodnight

**Author's Note:**

> So, first of all, I want to say, WOW, I LOVE THE ORDER?? SO MUCH?? The nights really make it for me, not going to lie. They're my favourite part of the show. And while I love all the characters, I sometimes have to fast-forward through the parts with the Order, just because I don't like inter-party conflict and they're all about embarrassing people and getting in trouble and stuff? I also worry about people getting caught being shifty. That's why I could never really watch supernatural. I wasn't afraid of what happened, I was always afraid of them getting caught breaking into houses and stuff haha.
> 
> But keep in mind- I have not watched episode 9 yet!! I literally wrote this as soon as I finished episode 8, so I don't know if this is addressed differently or at all at the beginning of the next episode!! So keep that in mind while you're reading this because I had a lot of fun with it, but I'm also worried that I may have broken continuity for a bit. So, sorry about that, but I hope you enjoy it despite the mistakes it might be made?? I don't know. I just... I love the Knights so much that I had to write this despite not finishing the show. What happened to Randall was so fucked up?? And I don't even totally understand it, but fuck people, that's really rough!! Poor guy!! But someone on Tumblr asked for more The Order whump and fics on Ao3, so here you are!!! I hope you enjoy it and that I didn't do too bad of a job xx

Once the night had finally settled to something benign and familiar, and Jack had left with the blonde-haired mage, Hamish sat slumped on the couch, while Lilith fixed her and Randall drinks, something dark and strong and fitting to end the night. 

Randall wandered into the room and took the drink from Lilith when she offered it to him, and he gave her a small smile in thanks, keeping his eyes on the ground. Hamish watched him over the lip of his glass as he manoeuvered around the living room to find a seat on the couch beside Hamish, collapsing heavily, some of his drink sloshing out of his glass. He glared at it for a moment before he licked it off his finger. 

Nobody spoke for a few long moments, with Lilith standing at the bar and Hamish musing over his second drink for the night and Randall resolutely refusing to look at anything but the far corner and the floor beneath it.

Ultimately, when it all started to get awkward, Hamish spoke up. It was his job to diffuse situations, after all. “So,” he said elegantly. “This night has been a shit-show.”

Lilith scoffed, harsh and unkind. “You can fucking say that again.” She braced one hand on the bar, her hip seemingly the only thing holding her up, and though she held her head high and her shoulders were squared, her eyes betrayed her exhaustion, her weariness.

“How about you, Randall?” Hamish titled his head on the back of the couch to face Randall, so close yet so far, curled up into a tight ball on the other side of the couch, as far away from anyone that he could get while still remaining in the same room. His knees were pulled up to his chest, his elbow balanced on the arm of the couch, his head resting on his hand, his glass dangling precariously from the fingers of his other hand pinched loosely around the glass’ rim. 

“Fine,” Randall grunted, and Hamish raised his eyebrows at him. Randall still refused to so much as glance at him, “‘m fine.”

Lilith exchanged a glance with Hamish. “Are you…  _ sure _ ? Because you don’t look fine, let alone sound fine.”

“It’s been a long day for all of us,” Hamish reasoned. “You most of all. You were the one captured by the Order’s scientists and tested on for days. I’d be surprised if you really were fine. I know that I sure as hell wouldn’t be. I doubt Lilith would either.”

“Speak for yourself,” Lilith restored, but at Hamish’s withering look, she clamped her mouth shut with a click of her teeth. “You’re right, I’d be a wreck. A total, hopeless wreck.”

“Yeah,” Randall said as if Lilith hadn’t spoken. “I think it’s safe to say that today could have gone better. I’m uh,” he licked his lips and looked steelily at the ground. “I’m sorry that I attacked you tonight, Hamish. I don’t know what got into me.”

Hamish scoffed, harsher than he meant to, and Randall shot him a scalding look, the only time he had looked at him all night. “ _I_ know what got into you. Or, well, literally got _put_ into you. Some sort of emotion-enhancing sigil, if that Alyssia woman is meant to be believed. Though Jack seemed to trust her, and she did help rescue you from that place.”

Pursing his lips, Randall subconsciously lifted a hand to rub his fingers over the scar on his neck. It had healed back to a soft pink line, though it was still harsh and crude looking. But anything was better than the dark stitches and almost infected-looking puffiness that had remained when they found him. Alyssia had said that it was due to the sigil underneath, infecting his body as it infected his thoughts and feelings, but Hamish disliked it regardless. “I’m sorry that I made you worry about me,” he said. “I should have at least been smart enough to keep my phone in my pocket instead of losing it in the bar fight.”

“Oh, enough of that foolishness,” Hamish took another sip of his drink to let the room- and the mood- settle. “There’s nothing you could have done, and you have no reason to blame yourself for it. We would have come looking for you whether you had gone missing or had just wandered off on a drunken bender or something.”

“Yeah, and it’s not your fault that you were seduced by that woman,” Lilith muttered, audibly sipping at her drink.

When Randall didn’t reply, Hamish turned and watched him, _really_ watched him, and decided that he looked the same as he himself did when he lost his Knights the first time, so long ago yet not long enough. He cradled his glass against his face, his other hand resting on the scar on his neck where the sigil was implanted and subsequently removed, his knees curled up to his chest. He looked completely, utterly pathetic. Almost like Hamish was looking in a mirror. A cruel, honest mirror. 

Hamish couldn’t imagine what happened to Randall in that place, with the impenetrable doors and steel walls and windows braced with bars. He hadn’t been there when Jack found him but judging by the way Jack had watched him the whole walk back home, it hadn’t been pretty. There was the familiar smear of blood at the corner of his mouth, and Hamish knew what that meant without even asking, but the fact that it was there at all, still fresh as it was, was concerning. Alyssa had looked sick, and he suspected that if she were alone, or if it was just her and Jack, she might have thrown up in the bushes that lined the path.

He wished that he had been the one to find Randall. Randall was _his_ friend, _his_ pack, _his_ brother. But then again, Jack was a Knight too now. They were all a family, and Jack had just as much right to bring Randall home as Hamish did. That didn’t mean that he had to like it, though.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Hamish offered, placing too much attention to the swirling ice in his glass. Randall didn’t immediately answer, but he watched Lilith stiffen in the corner of his eye. “I’d be happy to listen to whatever you want to talk about, you know. Get it off your chest. It might help this foul mood you’re in tonight.”

The second part was tossed out there as a joke, and normally would have elicited some cunning retort, a snarky reply, but tonight all he got was, “No.”

“No?” Hamish repeated like Randall had started speaking a different language. “What do you mean, _no_?”

“ _No_ , I don’t want to talk about it,” Randall replied, his words clipped. 

Hamish turned fully to stare at him, his arm thrown over the back of the couch, and Randall stiffened beside him. Hamish knew his Knights well, and regardless, Tundra knew Greybeard, and that connection was just as special. “Randall.”

“I don’t want to talk about it _tonight_ ,” Randall relented, sighing so heavily that he seemed smaller, hunched in on himself even more than Hamish ever thought possible. Randall wasn’t a small man, but seeing him like this… wasn’t natural. And they turned into werewolves and hunted dark magic for a pastime. “Not right now. I uh… I don’t want to think about it. I’m really tired. I… I just want to think it over for a few days. I don’t think I’ve really let it sink in. So no, I don’t want to talk about it tonight. But thanks anyway, Hamish.”

Pursing his lips, Hamish watched Randall uncurl himself just long enough to place his half-drunk drink that Lilith had so lovingly prepared on the coffee table before he flopped backwards and folded himself up in the corner of the couch, his head resting on the crook of his elbow balanced on the arm of the couch, his free hand folded under his face. “Well, another time then.”

Randall opened and closed his mouth a few times before he looked away again, hiding his face partially behind his hand as he ran his fingers through his hair, “Hamish. I uh… I just wanted to say that-”

He was interrupted by the front door opening and slamming shut abruptly and the room suddenly being filled with the deep, angry growling of a very unhappy werewolf, and Jack stormed through the room, the hems of his pants coated in mud from trekking through the woods, and his eyes were fixed towards the staircase, his fists clenched at his side, his eyes a dazzling blue. 

“Jack?” Hamish asked as he prowled through. “What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jack replied, voice almost unrecognizable through all the growling.

“Jack-”

_ “Not now!” _

Somewhere above, a door slammed, and the growling was drowned out by layers of wood. Hamish turned to Lilith, who had an exasperated expression on her face. “Do you want to go and deal with that?”

“Not really,” she said as she downed the rest of her drink and left it discarded around the bar before manoeuvering to where the boys were sitting. She looked at Randall as she hovered her hand over his unfinished glass and asked, “Are you going to finish this?”

“Nope,” he said, and she swiped it up without a second thought, turning her back on the conversation and sprinting up the stairs to follow Jack wherever he had retreated to.

But then it was just Hamish and Randall, crammed into either side of the couch, and it felt just like old times, if only for a few short moments. Surprisingly, after the night they’d had, it was Randall who spoke with a pleasing spark of humour. “That kid has some issues,” he snorted as he listened to something shatter upstairs. 

“Tell me about it,” Hamish replied, and he couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up in his throat. “That boy has more problems than I do, and I’ve been a Knight for eight years. I knew that letting him join would be stressful, but I can’t deny that it’s been an adventure. But one day, I want to figure out what makes that boy tick.”

There was a chuckle from Randall, but it was half-hearted and weak. Hamish thought it would be best not to look over and put pressure on him to speak, so he occupied himself during the silence by fiddling with his phone, checking his emails, memorizing his timetable for the next week. When Randall spoke, he sounded too quiet, defeated, ashamed. “Hamish?”

“Hm?”

“I’m sorry that I called you an alcoholic,” Randall said, and he refused to look at him, refused to even look up from where he was staring holes into the carpet. “I was just angry, and I was upset from today, and I… I didn’t mean it. I’m really sorry, man.”

“Oh, don’t sweat it. Is that what you’re worried about?” Hamish didn’t mean to react the way he did, but he couldn’t help it. The admission caught him so off-guard that he didn’t have a chance to come up with a carefully constructed answer. “You’re probably right. You’ve got no reason to worry. I prefer _alcohol connoisseur_ , but whatever floats your boat. I forgive you if that’s what you need from me to move on. I’ll always forgive you. All of you. There’s nothing you could do to change that.”

Randall’s shoulders slumped as he relaxed at the response. “Oh. Oh good. I thought you were going to be mad at me or something.”

“Me? Mad at you? After the day you had today?” Hamish shook his head. “You had every right to act the way you did. If I were to get mad at you, that wouldn’t make me much of a friend and even less of a leader. I strive to be both of those things.”

Hamish didn’t need Tundra’s advanced senses to hear the way Randall drew in a shaky, wavering breath. He blinked hard, and when he turned his head to face Hamish, his eyes were a million miles away. “I woke up in a cell,” he said and he sounded both angry and horrified by the thought. “And not even Greybeard could break down the door. It was like it was designed for me. I didn’t know where I was. I… I thought I was going to die in there, Hamish. I didn’t think that you guys would ever find me.”

“Well,” Hamish said slowly as he leant forward and placed his glass on the coffee table so he could give Randall his full attention. “You know that we would never have let that happen. We would have searched for you until the end of time. We wouldn’t have given up. So that’s a worry you can set aside.”

“All those people, Hamish,” Randall gulped. “They’re dead because of me. It’s my fault. If I had been more careful, if I had fought back just a little bit harder…”

“Hey,” Hamish placed a hand on Randall’s knee and squeezed. “You can’t think like that. There’s nothing you could have done to change the course of what happened.”

“I might as well have been the one who killed them.”

“You can’t think like that, Randall,” Hamish shook his head, and Randall wiped at his face with the back of his hand. “There’s nothing you could have done. You were locked in a cage and some crazy scientist experimented on you for the Order’s gain. You didn’t do those things to those people. You never laid a hand on them. You had no involvement in what happened other than being kidnapped and forced to obey against you will.”

“But if they were lucky enough to make it through the first round of testing,” Randall said, and he sounded so bitter, so angry, et so empty at the same time, that if Hamish were a different man, he would be reaching over and wrapping his friend in a warm embrace. “Then they were sent to me, and I would tear them apart. _Greybeard_ would tear them apart,” he amended, but it didn’t seem to resolve any of the guilt he felt.

Hamish observed him carefully. “You’re starting to sound like Jack. What Greybeard does when you let him loose is not your fault. He may be a part of you, but you are not one in the same. Greybeard killed them. Randall was just a victim of circumstance. Don’t fall into the same trap that Jack did. Don’t feel guilty for something you didn’t do.”

“Yeah, well,” Randall said. “Maybe now I understand why Jack was so horrified when he first killed all those people. It’s not a nice feeling to have that on your conscious.”

There were a great many things that Hamish wanted to say to Randall, but by the look on his face and the way he held himself, he decided that a different change of direction was probably for the best. “Randall. Randall, look at me,” slowly, tentatively, Randall glanced up to look at him, and the emotion that flooded them was bottomless and as unknown as the ocean. “You were delt a great atrocity today. What happened to you was unforgivable and cruel and I’m so sorry that you had to experience that. You didn’t deserve it.”

Randall shifted uncomfortably. “Hamish, I appreciate it, but can you spare the ‘pick-me-up’ speech? I don’t want to hear it.”

“This is the exact opposite of a ‘pick-me-up’ speech,” Hamish said frankly. Randall rose his eyebrows at him. “What happened to you was unacceptable, the worst humanity can offer. But you can’t let it fester. I’m not saying that you can’t feel it at all, but if you let it get to you, _really_ get to you, then you’ll never be able to move on, and your life might as well be over. Trust me, I know,” He thought about Cassie, and something sharp and fractured shifted in his chest. “I don’t want you to end up like me.”

“An alcohol connoisseur? A great leader?”

“Exactly,” Hamish swallowed back the bile in his throat. “Drinking to forget about problems and making life-or-death decisions over a game of beer pong. But trauma doesn’t make you a great leader, a good person or even a good wolf. It’s how you deal with it that matters. It’s how you move on. Survive.”

“And if I can’t?”

“You will,” Hamish said simply like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Because for all your flaws and your foolishness, you’re a good man, a strong man. You’ll get through this. And even if you can’t, you’ve got all of us to keep you in line. Me and Lilith and fuck, even Jack. We’re all here. We’re more than just friends, you know. We’re…”

“A pack,” Randall finished when Hamish couldn’t find the words, a small yet genuine smile curling at the corners of his lips, the first one that Hamish had managed to pry out of him tonight. “We’re a pack. All four of us.”

Hamish mused the thought over. He could live with that. “A pack,” he repeated, and Randall’s eyes did the smiling for him.

The silence was broken by footsteps on the stairs, and they turned to see Lilith descending from the top floor, looking tired and frustrated and exasperated all at the same time. “How’d it go?” Randall asked once she left the final step.

“It’s a long story,” she sighed. “And frankly, I’m fucking sick of hearing about it. But you want my opinion? It’s not the best news.”

Jack appeared soon after, his hair messy like he’d been tugging at it and his nails bit to nubs, scratches up and down his arms. There was a trickle of blood on his chin that Hamish recognized as the act of trying to forcibly prevent a transformation but the teeth had made it through the gums before it was halted. “You look like shit,” Hamish observed when Jack joined Lilith on the landing.

“You don’t look much better,” Jack retorted, without any heat.

Randall waved a hand absently at the stairs. “What was that all about before?”

“Trouble is what it is. We’re going to need to discuss a game plan for what we’re going to do with the Order, because-” he paused when Lilith stepped subtly on his foot, and he caught sight of Hamish’s warning glare, and he brushed it off with a laugh instead, reaching up to fix his hair. “You know what? Let’s talk about it another time. It’s not that important and it’s been a long day. How are you feeling, man?”

Shrugging, Randall slumped further into the arm of the couch, but thankfully, this time it just looked like a resting position and not a hopeless one. “I’ve been better, but I’m fine. I don’t feel like going through that again though. Thanks for getting me out of there, by the way.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Jack snorted. “You’d have done the same for me. I was just doing my duty as a Knight. And as a friend,” he paused when he received no reply. “You guys… _would_ do the same for me, right?”

“Most likely,” Lilith said, shrugging at Jack’s incredulous expression. “I mean, we’d certainly come looking for you in any case, but how hard we look really depends.”

“Depends on  _ what _ ?”

“On how obnoxious you were being,” Hamish replied, and all the Knights laughed at the look on Jack’s face. “And you have my word that we will search for you just as hard as we searched for Randall. Though I can’t guarantee going to the Order to borrow one of their sympathetic young mages.”

“Yeah, mock the guy who pretty much saved Randall, has given you access into the Order and has helped you with your mission more times than I can count,” Jack pouted. “Is that all I am to you guys? Expendable? Cannon fodder?”

“No, dude, now you’re just getting your wolves mixed up,” Randall pointed out. “You’re Silverback, not Midnight. Keep up, dude. I thought that you were supposed to be smart.”

“Of all the secret societies I decided to dedicate my life to, I choose this one,” Jack muttered, but the smile gave him away.

“Well, you only know of two, so I’d say you made the right decision,” Lilith said. “Would you rather turn into a wolf and fight evil magic or sacrifice body parts and put people in danger to get everything you ever wanted?”

“That’s a tough trade, not going to lie,” Jack shrugged. “I mean, turning into a werewolf is cool and all but… magic? Who in their right minds would say no to magic?”

Hamish rolled his eyes. “Alright, I’ve heard enough about the Order and their magic tonight. This is not the way we celebrate victories like this.”

“Victories?” Randall asked and everyone turned to look at him. “What victory? We didn’t even do anything! We got into a bar fight, got drunk, and did literally nothing. What victory are _you_ talking about?”

“Destroying that place was a victory,” Hamish said. “Saving you was a victory. Taking down one more evil in the world, magic or not, was a victory. I assume the person in charge of the experiments has been taken care of?”

They all knew what Hamish was talking about, and Randall’s face screwed up at the thought. “Yeah,” he said. “The only time we’re ever seeing that guy again is in a body bag.”

“Than that is another victory,” Hamish said simply. “That’s four victories in one day. I think that deserves some sort of celebration, even if that is an early night and a sleep-in tomorrow morning.”

“Oh,” Randall said. “I would _die_ for a sleep-in. I’m fucking exhausted. I could even sleep on the roof if I had to tonight.”

Lilith smirked. “That doesn’t sound like a bad idea…”

Hamish clapped his hands together, and it was settled. “Then you head to bed, and I’ll make some phone calls to exempt you from your first period tomorrow. It’s the least I could do. You deserve it, even if it is to categorise our stash in the basement.”

“And I’ll swing by and bring your favourite chicken wings from the bar for lunch tomorrow,” Jack promised.

“Don’t look at me,” Lilith frowned when everyone turned to her. “My presence is enough of a gift already.”

Sighing, Randall stood, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Thanks, guys,” he said, and while it was quiet, it was a rare serious moment, and it was as genuine as it could get. “You saved my bacon today. I really appreciate it. I don’t want to think about what would have happened if you hadn’t got there when you did,”

“Then don’t,” Lilith said. “Don’t think about it. Just go to bed, and think about literally anything else. You don’t have to think about that place ever again.”

“Right,” Randall laughed. As he passed him, Jack reached up and ruffle Randall’s hair, leaping out of the way when Randall swiped at him. They both laughed for a moment before Randall turned again. “I’m going to bed. I’ll see you guys in the morning.”

“When I say sleep, Randall,” Hamish called after him. “I mean  _ sleep _ .”

The last they heard of Randall before his bedroom door closed was his soft, gentle chuckle floating down the stairs. 

But then it was just the three of them, and Hamish knew that it was time he took charge. He was the leader after all, and he always had his packs best interest at heart. “You two should go as well. I’ve got it from here.”

When it was just Hamish alone in the lounge, surrounded by darkness and silence, he picked up his glass from where it rested, forgotten, on the coffee table, the ice melted and the alcohol diluted and lighter looking and sipped it until there was nothing more. And when there was nothing left and all the last dregs were finished, he got up, mixed himself another one, and started the cycle again and again until the sun came up and the day before was forgotten.

**Author's Note:**

> For some stupid reason, I kept forgetting to put the 'n' in Knights and I spelt Lillith with two 'L's and also I spelt Randall a thousand different ways, so if there are any other simple spelling mistakes that I made, PLEASE let me know so I can fix them instead of me reading this a couple of months later and finding them all then


End file.
